


Covered by Roses

by shobogan



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Extra Treat, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Psychic Bond, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 21:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12466752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shobogan/pseuds/shobogan
Summary: Sharing nightmares is a common side effect of dating telepaths.





	Covered by Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [azaleaknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azaleaknight/gifts).



> Scott/Jean/Emma is my favourite poignant trainwreck, so I had to give it a shot! I hope you enjoy it. This is set right after Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men, with references to Search for Cyclops, New X-Men, and the Dark Phoenix Saga. The title comes from [Within Temptation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvemEVzjKz4).

The first time they shared a nightmare, Emma called it a bonding experience.

They woke stunned and shaking, old screams ringing in their heads, copper and ash on their tongues. Emma felt the elegant slice of Sinister's scalpel, and Scott felt a Sentinel's blast scorching his skin. He saw her Hellions in his classroom, their faces a blur and their bodies decaying, and she saw his children fading like forgotten ghosts.

She brushed it off, and they didn't talk about it, and he was fine with that. It was more important to focus on reality – on the students they still had, on the teams they led together, on the future they were trying to build.

(The first time he and Jean shared a nightmare she woke up screaming Annie's name, and he woke up in a cold sweat, and they held each other until they stopped trembling. She whispered desperate apologies into his shoulder, and he projected strained but sincere assurance. They talked in halting murmurs about loss and guilt and fear, and they fell asleep feeling a little more whole.)

Sometimes, when their subconscious [things] intertwine, it turns nightmares into dreams. Children are saved, and villains are vanquished; they are stronger and brighter and better. They don't talk about that, either. They don't talk about the flames that entwine their hands at their most triumphant, or the taste of fire when they kiss, or echoes of familiar laughter as sunlight bathes their skin.

(They don't talk about Phoenix embracing him on a sunbathed cliff, or Phoenix's cruel laughter as she tears her mind apart.)

After Danger, after Cassandra Nova, Scott remembered how easily past trauma can warp the present. (He shouldn't have forgotten, but it was easier that way.) He'd seen Shaw looming in Emma's mind, casting a shadow that swallowed her whole; he'd seen desperate fantasies of Ellie's survival, protected in Emma's arms.

On the Breakworld, Emma told him she loved him in the middle of a fire fight, and he projected strained but sincere reciprocation. They won the day by putting absolute trust in each other. Then they lost another member of their family.

Tonight, it's quiet. It's peaceful. It's just them, in a bedroom bathed in starlight. (So, really, it's not just them at all.) He doesn't speak until they're in bed, fine silk draped over aching muscles, close enough for their noses to brush.

“We need to talk.”

Emma heaves a sigh, wry and theatrical all at once. “I suppose we must.” If you didn't know the signs, you'd never realise she'd been sobbing in his arms a few hours earlier.

He reaches up to caress her cheek. She doesn't tense, doesn't turn her head. “It's always supposed to be us, and it never is.”

“You did die. Briefly.”

“Sort of. But she always knew I wasn't gone.”

They don't talk about Jean. He knows she can feel it, as he remembers being merged with Apocalypse. He was so ready to sacrifice himself to end them both. Jean wielded her pain and rage like a weapon through their psychic bond, and could easily have burned out both their mind. Instead, she tore them apart and cradled him in her arms as Nathan finished the job.

_Shh...I've got you. It's over._

Emma smiles, and there's only an echo of bitter insecurity. “Kitty remembered her as a saviour as well. A saviour from me.” She doesn't say _I wish she was really here_. Scott doesn't say _So do I_. 

Instead, he closes his eyes. “Let's dream together on purpose, this time.”

Emma doesn't respond, not with words. He hears the echoes of her memories – Jean saying _She's one of us!_ and _What makes you such a bitch, Emma?_ and _The Phoenix burns through lies, do you understand?_ For the first time, he feels a raging storm of conflicting emotions, of vicious yearning and bitter admiration and seductive terror.

With a deep, steadying breath, Emma covers Scott's hand with her own and pulls them into sleep.

When they open their eyes, they're drifting in a sea of stars. They're both in their costumes, both X-Men, but the designs keep shifting.

They both see his first vision when he was blasted out of Breakworld's sky, blurred and bright like ancient pastels. They both feel gangly and sweaty and anxious.

_Nice to meet you too..._

“You were so young.” Emma's murmur is protective, and jealous, and he can feel that it's for both of them. “But you knew the moment you saw her.”

He smiles, wearily rueful, as he pulls his visor off. “We both did. But we didn't say a damn thing for five years.” He lets the visor fall, taking Emma's hand in his before reaching towards his first glimpse of Jean Grey. She swirls like smoke around his fingers before fading away.

Emma's hand tightens in his, comfort she can't quite voice even here.

Then the stars begin to dance. Constellations shift into familiar shapes – friends and enemies, schools and cages – before they all come together, blindingly bright in the sudden blackness.

For all her vibrancy, she's more of a sketch of Phoenix than anything else, blurring contrasts of white and gold, green and red. Somehow, though, her smile is clear.

“Hi.” Playful and sonorous, wistful and transcendent.

“Hi, yourself.” It's a ritual, a memory, one that Emma can't – no, suddenly she remembers too. The feel of his tattered suit against her bare skin, the feel of her breath on his cheek, exhausted terror and boundless passion.

_She's so still. I'm not even sure she's alive. I want her to live – but what if she hasn't change? What if she's still Dark Phoenix?!_

_I'll love her just the same. For better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health – till death do us part._

“You might have asked.” Cool and crisp, but he hears the way her voice catches.

“I might have done a lot of things.” Phoenix spreads her arms wide, and wings of flame unfurl from her shoulders. He feels Emma tense – that fear is seared into her bones – but she doesn't shrink back, doesn't isolate herself in diamond. He squeezes her hand as Phoenix steps closer, as the fire encircles them. “I've been waiting.”

“I'm sorry.” The moment he says it, Emma rolls her eyes and Phoenix laughs. “All in good time,” she says, just as Emma says “We're too late anyway.”

That's when she turns away, staring into the endless abyss, the cold blackness beyond fire's embrace.

Suddenly he's holding Jean in his arms again, broken and bleeding; she's standing apart, head bowed as she mourns in bitter silence. They smell blood and ash, and hear Logan's feral screams.

Phoenix pulls them back with the warmth of her words. “Had we but world enough, and time.”

“We never do.” Scott's voice is rough, now, rough and tired, and a glimpse of his suit shows the colours fading, the fabric scorched and torn. “Never enough.”

“No.” For Phoenix, perhaps, but never for Jean. “All we can do is make the most of it.”  
Emma faces her again, bristling. “Is that the lesson?”

“You're the headmistress.” Sarcastic and sincere all at once, and she finally sounds more human than celestial.

He can feel Emma's relief, and her indignation. “Yes, I know it was meant to be your job.”

Jean shrugs, and her wings rise away from her, covering them all like a canopy of fire and feathers. Scott can see the colours of her last uniform, the shape of her trench coat. (He's never stopped wondering what she would have chosen next, once they decided to play superhero again.)

“It was. Then I died, so I'm glad it's you.” The admission hits Emma like a blow to the chest, leaving her breathless. Jean's smile is downright sly. “I knew I could leave you speechless. It's kind of cute.”

Emma's lips purse, and Scott tries not to laugh; he fails completely when Emma glares at him. She can't sustain it for long, and her lips curve into a reluctant smile.

Jean's hands are gloved when she reaches for theirs, warm leather against calloused skin and gleaming satin, a circle of contrasting soldiers. “It wasn't your fault.” She's talking about her own death, about Esme and Sophie's, Mike and Dean's.

About Kitty.

“That's easy for a ghost to say.” Harsh words, but there isn't much venom behind them, and Scott doesn't quite disagree anyway.

Jean's response is gentle. “You know I'm more than that.”

“Not enough to save her.”

“No. Just enough to save you.”

Emma scoffs, but her heart isn't really in it. Scott can feel the hope burning in her chest, the desperate ache for some measure of peace.  
Jean turns her gaze on him, suddenly stern. “I told you to live.”

“I'm trying.”

“Not hard enough.”

Well. How can he resist? “That's easy for a ghost to say.”

She laughs, like he'd hoped she would, before shaking her head. “Life incarnate, remember?” She pulls her hand from his to place it on his chest, and he can feel the warmth through the yellow kevlar (blue spandex, red leather), even through his skin. “You deserve to be happy. Happier than this, at least.”

Scott closes his eyes. “I betrayed you. And I don't – I regret hurting _you_ , but not - “

“Not loving _her_.” Jean is smiling, when she turns to Emma. “I was stunned, you know. When I felt it.”

They're struck with another memory, not restored but sharpened, clarified from a shattered consciousness.

_She loves him, Hank. Emma has actually fallen in love with my husband. It's almost funny.  
Wake up, Emma. Scott needs you._

_**Wake up.** _

She'd dismissed her resurrection as a New Age nightmare of forgiveness. She didn't allow herself to consider that Jean genuinely wanted her back, that she really believed -

“It was easier to leave, knowing you would be there with him.”

Emma blinks hard, because she's not crying in front of Jean Grey, not again, not when she's being so bloody _tender_.

“I never got a chance to apologise.”

God dammit. Emma takes a steadying breath before muttering, “Neither did I.”

Jean squeezes her hand, and then Scott's. “You're going to wake up. You're going to remember. You're going to understand.”

Her hands drop, and she steps in close. Somehow, she's pressed against both of them at once, tracing their cheekbones and smoothing their hair as she presses a kiss to their lips. Her wings descend, furling around them all.

**_Live._ **


End file.
